Daily Reflection for the Pontifical Mission Societies, September 30, 2025

Msgr. Roger J. Landry
National Director, The Pontifical Mission Societies
Daily Reflection for September 30, 2025

Here is the video of today’s reflection.

The YouTube generated transcript for today’s reflection is:

I’m Monsignor Roger Landry, national director of the Pontifical Mission Societies coming to you from a Manhattan rooftop. It’s September 30th, the memorial of St. Jerome, one of the great doctors of the church. In the gospel today, we have a pivotal scene in St. Luke’s retelling of what Jesus said and did. It’s the fulcrum of the entire gospel. He says Jesus fixed his face on Jerusalem. meaning he fixed his face on what he would be undergoing for us and our salvation. And everything else in St. Luke’s gospel that we’re going to hear until the end of the Liturgical year is going to be with Jesus’ eyes fixed on his passion, death, and resurrection. As soon as Jesus fixes his face, he turns and he goes to Samaria, this place that had had a dispute over the course of centuries with the Jews. The Samarians had intermarried with the Assyrians. And so the Jews had a huge problem with them. And the Samarians built their own temple on Mount Garrison, which is a competition for Jerusalem.

And so they were in dispute by this point for several hundred years. And Jesus was going to evangelize them. But at this time, even though Jesus had worked an extraordinary um intervention in the life of a woman at a well, the Samaritans didn’t accept them. And St. John and James, who were called the sons of thunder by Jesus a little bit later, called for fire from heaven to come down and destroy Samaria. They wanted to respond with anger, with vengeance. And Jesus rebuked them and just moved on to other places. Jesus had already given the instruction to the 12 when he sent them on out that if they don’t receive you in one town, dust what clings to your sandals and move on to the next place. Don’t hold the grudges. But they had forgotten what Jesus had said. And they weren’t so much consume concerned at that time of preaching the gospel, but consumed by a sense of retaliation. It’s so important for us to remember what Jesus said today on this feast of St. Jerome. We remember that his most famous saying is ignorance of scripture is ignorance of Christ. That if we really want to get to know Christ, we have to take advantage of the extraordinary gift of sacred scripture. Thanks be to God today. Many Catholics are through things like the Bible in a year podcast of Father Mike Schmitz and so many other means. We’re getting to know the word of God much better. That’s the means by which we’re able to get to know Jesus.

What was prophesied about him in the Old Testament that he fulfilled his sayings and his actions and then what the early church especially St. Paul and the first apostles said about him proclaiming him throughout the world. Today is a special day in which we take St. Jerome’s council seriously. He translated the Bible from its original languages into the common language of the people. And all of us have a sense of a vocation to translate the gospel into the idiom of the people we meet. That’s what missionaries do all across the globe. We pray for them today on the feast of St. Jerome.

At the end of today’s reflection, brothers and sisters, I just want to make a special invitation to you. We’re getting closer to the month of October, which is two things. First, it’s World Mission Month, which we pray for and sacrifice for missionaries, which has its culmination on World Mission Sunday, which this year is October 19th. And secondly, October is the month of the Holy Rosary.

In honor of both of these month-long celebrations, the Pontifical Mission Societies USA are going to be getting together with anybody who wants to join us from all over the country and world to pray the World Mission Rosary. This was put together by my predecessor, Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, when he was director of the Pontifical Mission Societies to pray through our Lady’s intercession, the Holy Rosary for missionaries and those they’re serving in each of the continents of the world. Below on this email, you’ll be able to click on a box which will allow you to sign up to join us. I hope you will pray the World Mission Rosary with us throughout the month of October.